DEVIL’S BOTTOM ROAD
Devil’s Bottom Road
Maybe kill you quick
Devil’s Bottom Road
Maybe kill you slow
Trick to take you six feet under cold
Any card you show
Devil's Bottom Road
No place a girl like you should go
Your hair’s a mess your dress not buttoned right
Your hair’s a mess your dress not buttoned right
You been down I know
To Devil's Bottom Road again
Mist is on the river ghost is in the pine
Mist is on the river ghost is in the pine
Trick you taste champagne drinking five cent wine
Odds are crooked on the cape
Dice won’t pay what’s due
Moon comes rising up through black tupelo
Devil’s Bottom Road going to spell the death of you
You don’t come home last night till morning breaking down the door
You don’t come home last night till morning breaking down the door
I know you’ve been
Down to Devil’s Bottom Road again
Mist is on the river ghost is in the pine
Mist is on the river ghost is in the pine
Trick you taste champagne drinking five cent wine
Devil’s Bottom Road
Maybe kill you quick
Devil’s Bottom Road
Maybe kill you slow
Trick to take you six feet under cold
Any card you show
Devil's Bottom Road
No place a girl like you should go.
Russell Streur is a born again dissident residing in Atlanta, Georgia. His poetry has been published in the United States and Europe. He currently pours drinks at The Camel Saloon, an online poetry bar for dromedaries, malcontents and jewels of the world. Which one are you? http://thecamelsaloon.blogspot.com/
Monday, April 25, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
John Tustin- A Poem
BLIZZARD OF ICE
A blizzard of ice
swirls around my heart,
encircling, penetrating.
I shiver and shake,
its conspiracy,
frostbitten, blue,
numb, naked, fetal,
unprotected.
Ungloved.
Unloved.
The words unprepared.
Hang limply like frosty breath
in the blizzard air,
branches heavy with snow,
the scorched earth
a barren wasteland
of white and blinding nothing.
Walking, staggering,
frostbitten, barefoot,
cradling my love unreturned
with one crooked arm.
Ragged.
Deaf and sightless.
My tongue paralyzed,
dying for a drink.
The sun can’t crack the clouds,
the ice,
blizzard of ice and hollow noise,
blank air.
Howling and sirens.
Abandoned on the tundra
by my mother,
by my God,
by myself.
John Tustin writes when sober and submits it when drunk. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry is his link.
A blizzard of ice
swirls around my heart,
encircling, penetrating.
I shiver and shake,
its conspiracy,
frostbitten, blue,
numb, naked, fetal,
unprotected.
Ungloved.
Unloved.
The words unprepared.
Hang limply like frosty breath
in the blizzard air,
branches heavy with snow,
the scorched earth
a barren wasteland
of white and blinding nothing.
Walking, staggering,
frostbitten, barefoot,
cradling my love unreturned
with one crooked arm.
Ragged.
Deaf and sightless.
My tongue paralyzed,
dying for a drink.
The sun can’t crack the clouds,
the ice,
blizzard of ice and hollow noise,
blank air.
Howling and sirens.
Abandoned on the tundra
by my mother,
by my God,
by myself.
John Tustin writes when sober and submits it when drunk. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry is his link.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal- 3 Poems
I see spiders all the time.
We are all spiders.
We got it on in Noah’s Ark
and multiplied in numbers.
We left great numbers
in Australia and Mexico.
We wanted to learn to
speak English and Spanish.
We did not care for other
languages, but we learned
to swear in every language.
We crawl everywhere
and spin webs. We eat flies
for the protein. We do not
like to eat them when they
are still alive. We’re not pigs.
A BEAUTIFUL MIND
I have a beautiful mind,
just like the movie,
a beautiful mind.
I am God’s child.
I was bathed in the blood
of Jesus Christ
to protect myself from
the witchcraft of warlocks.
I do not take medication
from the beady eyed
doctor. If anybody needs
medicine, it’s him.
I can read, write, do math.
I have all my faculties
intact. You could test me.
Pencil pushers and computer
wizards can’t prove that
I am a mental case.
I have a beautiful mind.
Don’t you think so?
Have a good day and
tell your friends about me.
COINS, PINS, AND TOOTHBRUSHES
I see officers
in monkey suits
shooting at me
with banana guns.
I hear voices that
want to insert
madness into
my mind forever.
They command me to
cut myself and
swallow coins, pins,
and toothbrushes.
The coins will make me
rich once they turn
into gold as
I slip into death.
The pins will bring me
back to life as
the pain will bring
a jolt to my heart.
The toothbrushes will
keep my teeth clean.
The bristles will
tickle me and make me
laugh. The voices will
get jealous and
stop talking their
nonsense all day long.
Luis works in the mental health field in Los Angeles, CA.
His chapbook, Songs For Oblivion, will be published by
Alternate Current Press.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Gary Beck- Three Poems
Domesticity
Wanting you
not in circumspect discretion,
but letting the explosive madness show,
until your knowing, testing,
then letting me take you,
erupting an insane hunger
swallowing you,
chaining you inside me.
Secure,
a mocking laugh startles me,
stabs in midnight whispers.
I whimper awake,
your head beside me on the pillow,
little girl’s face crinkly with sleep.
I shake you.
I scream your name.
I shatter you awake.
I cry: ‘Do you love me?’
‘Whatta you crazy?’ you yell.
‘I gotta go ta work in the morning.
Lemme sleep.’
You mumble: ‘Dopey sonofabitch.’
Pat me.
Not knowing to caress or strangle,
I lie rigid, staring at the ceiling,
you asleep. I awake.
The alarm rings,
you stretch,
shut it off,
roll on me,
prison me beneath you,
run your tongue along my neck and under my chin.
Whisper: ‘My possessive little boy.’
Your hand takes root on me.
You weld us together.
You moan an ecstatic ghost cry of tremors,
then still.
We doze.
With you melting on me,
the long night fades.
Two Songs of Lust
Blondly erotic
with lost eyes
she chokes from too much wanting.
I feel some pity,
but mostly
would lay hands
upon her body.
She walks by,
a triangle between her thighs
cripples her.
She is soft,
like fingers holding rotten plums.
Her hips are agonized rotations
that summon hands
to roam her body
and I cannot resist.
Zoo Threat
The leopard prowls from wall to wall
cursing the bars with flame eyes,
climbs like housecat to its perch,
yawns elegantly,
full of dangerous grace,
stretches black-spot length,
sits,
watches the watchers,
speaks with jungle tongue:
Sssssss
I will get loose.
Sssssss
I will find your children in their lair.
Sssssss
I will pet them with my claws for throwing peanuts.
I will kiss them with my fangs for laughing.
I can wait.
One dark night…. I’ll be free.
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn't earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His chapbook 'Remembrance' was published by Origami Condom Press, 'The Conquest of Somalia' was published by Cervena Barva Press, 'The Dance of Hate' was published by Calliope Nerve Media, 'Material Questions' was published by Silkworms Ink, 'Dispossessed' was published by Medulla Press and 'Mutilated Girls is being published by Heavy Hands Ink. A collection of his poetry 'Days of Destruction' was published by Skive Press. Another collection 'Expectations' was published by Rogue Scholars press. His novel 'Dark Strains' will be published by Post Mortem Press. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway and toured colleges and outdoor performance venues. His poetry has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn't earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His chapbook 'Remembrance' was published by Origami Condom Press, 'The Conquest of Somalia' was published by Cervena Barva Press, 'The Dance of Hate' was published by Calliope Nerve Media, 'Material Questions' was published by Silkworms Ink, 'Dispossessed' was published by Medulla Press and 'Mutilated Girls is being published by Heavy Hands Ink. A collection of his poetry 'Days of Destruction' was published by Skive Press. Another collection 'Expectations' was published by Rogue Scholars press. His novel 'Dark Strains' will be published by Post Mortem Press. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway and toured colleges and outdoor performance venues. His poetry has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Colin James- A Poem
THE BARBARIANS HAD ACTED REGRETTABLY
My son found the dragon’s teeth amongst
some rocks and fine white sand. He washed
them clean in a tidal pool. A Hermit crab
showed interest followed, scraping with its claw at
the tip then sucking the remnant root.
The boy threw sand disturbing the search
for scales as dense as death. He reclaimed
his find and climbed up on the rocks with me to sit.
We examined the harder than fire inner blackened.
Easily sold to tourists later, paying us much more
to guarantee their safe passage here and back.
My son found the dragon’s teeth amongst
some rocks and fine white sand. He washed
them clean in a tidal pool. A Hermit crab
showed interest followed, scraping with its claw at
the tip then sucking the remnant root.
The boy threw sand disturbing the search
for scales as dense as death. He reclaimed
his find and climbed up on the rocks with me to sit.
We examined the harder than fire inner blackened.
Easily sold to tourists later, paying us much more
to guarantee their safe passage here and back.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Bryan Murphy- Two Poems
Bloody Student Cuts
A viewing platform:
the world sees him
lotus-knee’d on the flat roof
of the prematurely aged
“New Building” of a tired university
raised beyond its means,
tasked beyond reason,
refused life support, just
to keep a bottom line black.
In front of him, see
a slim spire, city symbol,
split the mountain background,
aspire to higher matters, above constraint.
Built as a synagogue, abandoned
for fear of a fall to earth,
now the nation’s cinematographic mecca,
it hints that human genius may endure,
though all will pass.
A drabber edifice, way below,
lures the protestor’s starry eyes
to meaner aspirations, baser options,
a secure footing in a young man’s world
mediated by televisual rituals
and largesse for a mogul’s minions and mignotte.
Too late the lure. The image
sweeps the world in a different format:
a photograph, stamped even on Web front pages,
portrays the youth as Sisyphus unchained,
calling us to our consciences,
reminding us that even here,
in this good-life cage, or our own lands,
a voice can still be lifted
to penetrate clamour or silence
with “Enough is enough!”
He’s marked, that lad: bad attitude,
immortalised, brands him a future.
One saving pathway beckons from the dark:
to trade his looks and locks with Mammon,
shine them with Saviour’s shampoo, whatever,
then splatter them across the waves of air
to spare us worry over life’s tough choices.
Rule of the Road
It’s only a car - blood’ll wash off -
not even yours. Moment’s distraction,
pressed the wrong pedal;
he was probably drunk, too.
Pile out. Moving - still alive.
Gather up the broken body,
shove it on the back seat.
No arguments! Where’s the hospital?
Get there before police show up.
Leave him to do the forms – who else
would know his mother’s maiden name?
Hope he lives. Hell of a dent!
Still, it’s not as though it’s yours.
Bryan Murphy is a translator who lives and works in Turin, Italy. His own words have recently appeared in The View from Here, Transparent Words, The Camel Saloon, Snakeskin and Pygmy Giant.
A viewing platform:
the world sees him
lotus-knee’d on the flat roof
of the prematurely aged
“New Building” of a tired university
raised beyond its means,
tasked beyond reason,
refused life support, just
to keep a bottom line black.
In front of him, see
a slim spire, city symbol,
split the mountain background,
aspire to higher matters, above constraint.
Built as a synagogue, abandoned
for fear of a fall to earth,
now the nation’s cinematographic mecca,
it hints that human genius may endure,
though all will pass.
A drabber edifice, way below,
lures the protestor’s starry eyes
to meaner aspirations, baser options,
a secure footing in a young man’s world
mediated by televisual rituals
and largesse for a mogul’s minions and mignotte.
Too late the lure. The image
sweeps the world in a different format:
a photograph, stamped even on Web front pages,
portrays the youth as Sisyphus unchained,
calling us to our consciences,
reminding us that even here,
in this good-life cage, or our own lands,
a voice can still be lifted
to penetrate clamour or silence
with “Enough is enough!”
He’s marked, that lad: bad attitude,
immortalised, brands him a future.
One saving pathway beckons from the dark:
to trade his looks and locks with Mammon,
shine them with Saviour’s shampoo, whatever,
then splatter them across the waves of air
to spare us worry over life’s tough choices.
Rule of the Road
It’s only a car - blood’ll wash off -
not even yours. Moment’s distraction,
pressed the wrong pedal;
he was probably drunk, too.
Pile out. Moving - still alive.
Gather up the broken body,
shove it on the back seat.
No arguments! Where’s the hospital?
Get there before police show up.
Leave him to do the forms – who else
would know his mother’s maiden name?
Hope he lives. Hell of a dent!
Still, it’s not as though it’s yours.
Bryan Murphy is a translator who lives and works in Turin, Italy. His own words have recently appeared in The View from Here, Transparent Words, The Camel Saloon, Snakeskin and Pygmy Giant.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Amit Parmessur- Three Poems
POEM 1: Bottled
Sitting amidst sparkling tombs at midnight
I am holding a green bottle in my battered hands
All the crimson wine in my belly is ringing,
ringing luscious bells on her melodious name
My barbaric beard glistens in the milky moonlight
like an inverted pyramid housing mummified dreams
I scan solemnly the bittersweet sky resembling
an empty page, one upon which I try hard
to decipher the promise made by her juicy lips
I crave to feel her soft crayon-like fingers,
to know the twisty paths of her clumsy toes,
ready to hammer my tingling heels to fit her footprints
I want to undress her hip and her navel,
making them my pillow on alternate nights,
nights to be spent on a broad bed of fragrant silk
I muse. My girl is the bottle mouth,
I’m the bottom on which the bottle stands
The body of the bottle, which my hands
want to strangle is the tyrant keeping us apart
I wish I could crush it and unite
the mute mouth to the passionate bottom
Why,
but why is it that each time I look at this
tomb without flowers over there,
I see my odious name carefully laid on it
POEM 2: Nirvana
Nowadays I am lunching on the nectar
of devotion in the fecund Abode of God,
the formless Force to whom all forms belong
I was turned into a net, a huge net with infinite holes
tied together with the strings of my failures
I just wanted to flow in the river of her virginity,
feasting on the passion of her delicate heart
My end started by making a spectacular dive,
in a deep pool of my own blood
I ended up as dying drops in a desert full
of dehydrated travelers, but I
am enjoying the divine force around me
now
She broke my chest with a smiling hammer
and stole my heart. She glued my eyelids
to my forehead and stole my mind. She drank
some of my blood, thinking it was Irish wine
She whipped my sandcastle with the
lightnings in her palm and turned me
into an old bottle to be kept under a broad bed
I have arduously climbed a mountain made
of my own swollen bones held together
by modest but shattered dreams
When I inhale I feel like a living dead,
when I exhale I’m a withered flower
but I am enjoying the divine force around,
waiting for when, where, why,
and how I shall be stung again.
POEM 3: reproaches from the dead
pouring some blood into my teacup,
I tried new heights of spirituality
through the rickety window,
I could see a madman shooting
at golden shooting stars,
with an erect blade of grass in hand
and in the neglected garden,
I could find bloody flowers sprouting
amidst the glistening moonlit leaves
soon in the distant darkness
I could make out a few
angels coming out of the swollen soil
my adorable grandmother,
my drunkard of a grandfather
and my brave girl
I shook my head; grandmother was surely
coming to remind me about cleaning her grave
grandfather would ask me why I had
neglected his wife just like he did when alive,
I tossed the blood into my mouth
my dead girl knew that I had betrayed
the promise of never loving someone else
with the dead folk approaching
I closed my frozen eyes,
plugging the bottle of whiskey
into my own glass-cold mouth
unaware that there was a snake in it
I shouldn’t have killed those shooting stars
Aged 28, Amit Parmessur has been published many times in his homeland Mauritius. He has been published and is forthcoming in over 30 magazines including Carcinogenic Poetry, Leaf Garden Press, Long Story Short, LITSNACK and Eunoia Review since starting to submit his poems late 2010. He is very close to the land of his ancestors, India.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Carmen Taggart- A Poem
Chubby Little Angel
slide
further along the path
mayhem
envelopes without a notice
mayhem
ensues as we
slip deeper into denial
snooping friends
trumpet
delight
at the pain they discover
chubby little angel
shoots his arrows
no consideration for where they may land
blankets of confusion
sizzling thoughts of eros
coming up unbidden in the middle of the day
swear to keep the thoughts at bay
rolling around in the hay
year after year
something must be done
gin joints
bouquets of arrows
the meat marketers send him out amongst the masses
beguile
the masses
mile upon mile lined up
underneath the sky looking for a
shooting star
to tell them that they are not alone in a
vast universe
where who owns your heart
is what matters to most
Monday, February 14, 2011
Gordon Mason- Three Poems
Café Solo
A visitors’ book lies
unopened and unsigned.
I look at my face
in a glass of black coffee
fringed by a caramel corona.
The glass shakes in my hand.
My face creases into fluid forms,
shifting skin.
I drain the glass
of this lonely thirst.
A visitors’ book lies.
©
Hour After Hour
snow
stamped with forced heels and soles
trenched with the labour of ignorant dragged feet
spotted with the youth of innocent skipping feet
one hour after
the first fall
pastry cutters
snow
stamped with forced heels and soles
one hour after
the second fall
one hour after
the oven fired
©
Until
a twisting tower of bamboo steps
a handrail that will snap on touch
it curves to the skies with one point
off which you will jump
jump and fly past a brittle criss-cross
of broken dreams, shattered in transit
unstable ladder now
it has no feet and leads to the horizontal
from a vertical past
feet that have trod on layers of rests
are silent - no more to sound on cracks
slung together by sounds of trumpets
the messenger of the horn, the coming of bamboo
the curtain has been pulled back, wrenched aside
and yet it still goes round and round, up and up
until
until
there is only free air, free space
a catalogue of emptiness from which you can order
peace on wires of knowledge
vision on eyes of hawks
strength on strings of violins
“come back to earth” the planets cry
from far reaches of a spotted tar sheet
Man has travelled and left his footprints
echoes into our thoughts
taken over by others
©
Gordon Mason divides his writing time between Scotland and Spain. Born and raised in Fife, Scotland, he has been a member of The School of Poets at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh. His first collection of poetry entitled 'Catapult to Mars' was published in 2006 by Poetry Monthly Press, and in 2010 further ebooks 'Black footprints in the frost' (Catapult Press) and 'Thunnerplump' (The Red Ceilings Press) were published. His poetry has appeared in more than 30 publications and he has been included in Poetas Para El Siglo XXI.
He shares his poetry at www.catapulttomars.blogspot.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Peter Magliocco- Two Poems
The Hip Lexicon of Contemporary Television
by Peter Magliocco
Maglioccolsvgs@aol.com
She's a T.V. personality ensconced,
"like bad putty,"
in late nite cable talk shows
mired by her endless Hollywood
tirades of unabridged filth.
She's a beautiful witch of plastic surgery
scalding audience ears
for viral words draw laughs
lampooning lascivious lasses
like herself while she
promulgates new media curses
no one can readily define.
Her ideal recurring guest
would be Charlie Sheen
just out of another rehab,
& she'd beg to screw him
despite Charlie's high class
hookers
love is still
a four-letter word
like shit tattooed on minds
transparent as windshields
of her expensive Jaguar
vandalized by teen wannabe
werewolves stalking her
tonight after the show; unfortunately
not one can read her bestselling book
about date rape with Eskimos,
& it doesn't take her long
to regret not describing all this
with the most obscene curse words ever
her bleeding lips can't utter.
==========
If Only Charlie Rose Could Hear This
by Peter Magliocco
Maglioccolsvgs@aol.com
They stand outside my digital realm
provoking vocal dissents & dissonance
From dungeons of mental chasms
countless T.V. viewers mildew in
With my unheard words faltering
beyond any actual commiseration
Bleeping out (in exquisite fury)
a telepathy of unborn shadows
Someone sings to me today
about the imminent fall of Egypt
Beyond veneration we abandon
graceful things clogging windowsills
Where Poe's black cats sit drowsing
& with jade green eyes half-lidded
Their evil rectitude still hovers
like lingering ectoplasm vapors
Siphoning desire from all those
unlucky humans still inside
Never noticing the flight now
of summer sparrows bristling
Through antique wooden frames
to mend the broken glass of time
==========
BIO:
-- Peter Magliocco writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he's edited the lit-zine ART:MAG for over 20 years. He has recent poetry in HEELTAP, SCYTHE, GOLD DUST, THIS, DEUCE COUPE and elsewhere. His latest chapbooks are Nude Poetry Garage Sale (Virgogray Press) and The Heaven of Words (Propaganda Press). He was Pushcart Prize nominated for poetry in 2010.
by Peter Magliocco
Maglioccolsvgs@aol.com
She's a T.V. personality ensconced,
"like bad putty,"
in late nite cable talk shows
mired by her endless Hollywood
tirades of unabridged filth.
She's a beautiful witch of plastic surgery
scalding audience ears
for viral words draw laughs
lampooning lascivious lasses
like herself while she
promulgates new media curses
no one can readily define.
Her ideal recurring guest
would be Charlie Sheen
just out of another rehab,
& she'd beg to screw him
despite Charlie's high class
hookers
love is still
a four-letter word
like shit tattooed on minds
transparent as windshields
of her expensive Jaguar
vandalized by teen wannabe
werewolves stalking her
tonight after the show; unfortunately
not one can read her bestselling book
about date rape with Eskimos,
& it doesn't take her long
to regret not describing all this
with the most obscene curse words ever
her bleeding lips can't utter.
==========
If Only Charlie Rose Could Hear This
by Peter Magliocco
Maglioccolsvgs@aol.com
They stand outside my digital realm
provoking vocal dissents & dissonance
From dungeons of mental chasms
countless T.V. viewers mildew in
With my unheard words faltering
beyond any actual commiseration
Bleeping out (in exquisite fury)
a telepathy of unborn shadows
Someone sings to me today
about the imminent fall of Egypt
Beyond veneration we abandon
graceful things clogging windowsills
Where Poe's black cats sit drowsing
& with jade green eyes half-lidded
Their evil rectitude still hovers
like lingering ectoplasm vapors
Siphoning desire from all those
unlucky humans still inside
Never noticing the flight now
of summer sparrows bristling
Through antique wooden frames
to mend the broken glass of time
==========
BIO:
-- Peter Magliocco writes from Las Vegas, Nevada, where he's edited the lit-zine ART:MAG for over 20 years. He has recent poetry in HEELTAP, SCYTHE, GOLD DUST, THIS, DEUCE COUPE and elsewhere. His latest chapbooks are Nude Poetry Garage Sale (Virgogray Press) and The Heaven of Words (Propaganda Press). He was Pushcart Prize nominated for poetry in 2010.
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